Quiz: The Writing of John le Carré

Question: What was John le Carré first published book?

Answer: Published in 1961, Call for the Dead was John le Carré’s first book.

Question: What famous character did Call for the Dead introduce?

Answer: Call for the Dead introduced the shrewd but self-effacing intelligence agent George Smiley, who became le Carré’s best-known character and was featured in several later works.

Question: John le Carré is a pseudonym. What is the author’s real name?

Answer: John le Carré is a pseudonym for David John Moore Cornwell.

Question: Which le Carré novel is an espionage tale set in 2018 that incorporates topical events like “Brexit?”

Answer: Agent Running in the Field is an espionage tale set in 2018, and it incorporates such topical events as “Brexit” (the British withdrawal from the European Union).

Question: Which le Carré novel follows the efforts of a terrorist to conceal himself in Hamburg?

Answer: A Most Wanted Man follows the efforts of a terrorist—the son of a KGB  colonel—to conceal himself in Hamburg. 

Question: Which of le Carré’s books centered on an aging British intelligence agent ordered to discredit an East German official?

Answer: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold centered on an aging British intelligence agent ordered to discredit an East German official.

Question: What is the 1974 novel where le Carré returned to his original protagonist, George Smiley?

Answer: Le Carré returned to his original protagonist, George Smiley, in 1974’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the first in a trilogy centred on Smiley and his nemesis, the Soviet master spy Karla.